by Emma Roberts
Julienne’s head tilted to the side. “How can you be sure?”
“Because they’re not going to take us to him looking like this. From what I heard, I don’t think Toulouse is our final destination. They’re going to auction us off to the highest bidder. And to do that, they would have to make sure we’re presentable first. They’ll take us someplace where we can get spiffied up. When we stop, I need you to be ready.”
“Ready to do what?” Julienne’s tone was layered with fear. I doubted the poor girl had ever faced something like this in her entire life. Maybe I had a stronger constitution, or maybe I was just growing accustomed to peril. Isadora Anwick had done me a favor, in a way. If I hadn’t been giving myself an ulcer all summer, trying to stave off the worst-case-scenario for all of my girls, I would probably have found this a lot more threatening. As it was, this situation was frightening, but not the endgame scenario I’d been dreading.
“Ready to run,” I whispered. A quick glance at Baldy revealed he was well and truly asleep. Unfortunately, the van had begun to pick up speed. We must have reached the edge of the city limits. I knew the speed limit on France expressways was a staggering eighty miles per hour. I didn’t like our chances of escaping the van alive at such a speed, even if Baldy didn’t loose a shot. With our hands bound, we’d probably end up scraping all the skin off our bodies. Better to wait until we were stopped.
“We can’t run,” she hissed back, her voice edging toward panic. “They have guns! They’ll kill us.”
I stuck out my chin defiantly. “If we don’t run, we’ll end up being raped and forced into slavery. Do you want to wait around for that to happen? Because I don’t. I’ll take my chances with a gun. The worst they can do is kill me.”
Julienne’s half-sob tugged at my heartstrings. I wanted to feel bad for her. I really did. She was not much more than a girl, younger than me by at least a few years. From what little she’d told me, she’d lived a sheltered and easy life. This had to be hard for her. But if she wasn’t going to run, I’d have to leave her behind to get help.
“Okay,” she said finally. “But I want to find my papa. He has a villa on the French Rivera. He has guards. He’ll protect us.”
I hesitated. Running to Julienne’s father was probably a bad idea. It was the first place our kidnappers would look for her. But what choice did I have, really? I’d already failed to save Kathleen. Leaving Julienne behind felt like the worst sort of betrayal. And she wasn’t going to budge unless I gave her something.
“Okay. We’ll go to your father’s villa. But only after we’ve laid low for a week or two. They’ll be searching for us. Let’s give them time to clear out before we find your father.”
Julienne nodded and I breathed a sigh of relief. Well, that was something at least. With little else to do, I drew my knees clumsily to my chest and rested my head on them. The best thing I could do was sleep and try to conserve my energy for the coming escape. But as the minutes ticked by and Julienne’s breathing evened out beside me, I had a feeling sleep would elude me for hours to come.
Chapter Four
Logan
My phone chimed and I seized it from the airplane seat beside me as we landed in Chicago, and flicked through to my email. The email address was familiar after a week of talking with Tuck, Mina’s loyal hacker friend. He seemed just as keen to find her as we were. The tagline said, I’VE GOT SOMETHING. All caps. He might as well have been shouting it.
I grinned fiercely and spun the screen to show Keenan. “What did I tell you?”
Keenan leaned in, his eyes lighting. “That means she’s alive, right?”
“Let’s find out.”
Tucker answered on the first ring, his pronounced New York accent a little grating when he spat, “Took you fucking long enough to call.”
I ground my teeth. I’d been about to go out of my mind as a large parade of thunderstorms marched their way across the western US, grounding us until this morning. “We’ve been in the air. The storms held us back. What did you find?”
“I’ve been running facial recognition software since you contacted me. It’s a given they won’t be using her real name or face. It’s been running slower than a fucking slug since I have to filter so much information. Not as easy as it sounds, thank you very fucking much.”
Even through my irritation, that remark was enough to tug a grin from me. “And what did you find, oh venerable spymaster?”
“Finally, some deference. I got a hit a few hours ago. A woman with facial features very like Mina was checked in at the French border yesterday. And get this, the alias used was one from the list Heather provided. Hannah Drake.”
My phone pinged, a text from Tucker. I tapped the notification and the grainy photo of a passport filled the screen. There was no doubt in my mind that the woman in the photo was Mina. She wore a similar getup at the art gallery only a week or so ago. The burning jealousy that accompanied the memory was hard to swallow back.
She went to Gideon fucking Harvey. Not even an hour after our argument, she’d thrown herself into his arms.
If he hadn’t been such a help in the last week, I would have punched his lights out. He was in love with her. It was obvious from the way his voice wrapped around her name, the way his eyes went soft when she was mentioned. And now he blamed himself for letting her go with Isadora.
But he’d also done what I couldn’t, the most painful position of all in this little scheme. He’d stayed put to keep an ear out for more news. The moment he found the slightest hint of motive, he’d promised to call.
“Where is she now?”
“I haven’t gotten any further hits, but the entry point was in the South of France. It narrows things down considerably. With any luck, I’ll have more for you by the time you land at Toulon-Hyères Airport.”
“Thank you, Tucker. I’ll pay you back for this.”
“Find her alive,” he barked. “That’s how you pay me back, Farraday. And then you wrap her in bubble wrap and stuff her somewhere safe. I don’t ever want to go through this heart attack again, you understand me?”
I nodded as I agreed. Those had been my thoughts exactly. I didn’t care if she hated me for it. I was never letting her out of my sight again. And if she decided that she didn’t want me after all, I’d make sure Gideon kept proper tabs on her. And there would be no more of this Hustler business, no matter what.
After we refueled, we went on to a private airstrip, where Colonel Wallace Graham met us. On a good day, I’d have relished the chance to see him. His duties so often kept him from our monthly rounds of golf. Those afternoons had been one of my only respites from a slog of misery that had come after taking over my father’s position as CEO of Farraday Industries. But today, nothing could pry a smile from me. Not even the arrival of a good friend.
Tanned, Graham was a head shorter than I was and built broad. Muscle corded his forearms beneath the rolled up the sleeves of his army dress blues. Gray threaded through the dark hair at his temples and lines fanned across his face. He gave me a curt nod and a salute as I approached. I returned the salute and embraced him as soon as I was within arm’s reach.
“Thank you for coming on short notice,” I muttered. “I know your daughter is getting married. Sorry to kill the mood.”
“If what you’re saying is true, it sounds like I didn’t have much of a choice. Not if I wanted to live with myself. You’re aware I’ll have to disavow giving you any of this if you’re caught or implicated in an international crime.”
He offered me a large, nondescript black backpack. It was heavy, no doubt filled with handguns, ammunition, and a cleaning kit, just as I’d requested. With California’s ten-day waiting period on gun purchases, the fastest way to procure enough fire power was Graham.
“I know,” I said with a nod, fingers closing over the strap. I slung it over my back, relaxing a little when the comforting weight of the weapons settled against my spine. “It’s a huge risk you’re taking even doing t
his. Thank you so much, Colonel.”
Graham eyed Keenan, who had followed me off the plane but stood near the portable stairs, with distaste and lowered the volume of his voice. “If you need backup, you can do better than the pretty boy,” he informed me. “If you can give me a couple days, I can have some men accompany you.”
“I don’t have any time to spare,” I told him with a scowl. “The longer we delay, the farther away she gets. I can’t let that happen, Colonel.”
Graham’s eyes clouded over with concern but he nodded. “I understand, son. Be careful. And rescue the girl. That’s an order.”
I gave him another salute and a tight grin. “Yes, sir.”
The next few hours were agony, until the pilot got approval for takeoff from the flight tower. It was evening by the time we were in the air once more. Keenan had been so silent, for an uncomfortable stretch, I was sure he was angry with me for the delay.
“I didn’t know you two were back together,” he said finally. “I thought you had an engagement with Phoebe Mason.”
I stared at him, trying to gauge whether or not he was serious about discussing my relationship status while we embarked on an international rescue mission. The earnestness in his gaze told me he was. I heaved a sigh and kneaded my temples. I wasn’t equipped to deal with this shit when Mina was slinging it at me, let alone her older brother. Keenan and I had barely spoken for six years, and I didn’t know what would set him off.
“It’s complicated.”
“Doesn’t look like it from where I’m sitting. Were you engaged to Phoebe or not? And how did my sister get involved?”
I signaled Joanne for a refill on my scotch. I needed to be more fortified before I was ready to dish out the details of the huge clusterfuck I’d been embroiled in.
“A month ago, your sister turned up at the Ritz-Carlton event hosted by Isadora Anwick. Do you remember it?”
He nodded. “Dad’s flight was delayed, so we were about an hour late. I didn’t see you there.”
“Because I was in the back with Mina by that point,” I admitted. “I was sneaking around, trying to find Owen Mason. Until last week, he’d been blackmailing me with incriminating details about my father’s marriages.”
Keenan’s brows shot up to his hairline. “Marriages? As in plural? I thought he was a bachelor after your mom was…killed.”
My mouth twisted down into a bitter frown and I glared down into my glass. If Gideon Harvey was truly my half-brother, my father hadn’t even waited a year after my mother’s death to start porking whatever woman he pleased. “That’s what I thought too. Apparently, he married thirteen women. One of which I actually knew. She served as his PA for a little while. Owen was threatening to release the information to the public in order to ruin me if I didn’t cooperate with his demands.”
“One of which was to marry Phoebe,” Keenan surmised. “And you were going along with it.”
“Until Mina turned up. She only told me part of the truth. She was being blackmailed. An unknown sender threatened to kill each of her girls. The part she didn’t disclose was that I was the mark. She was supposed to con six million out of me by the middle of August. Halfway through our arrangement the deadline was moved up to the middle of July. That’s when I found out her scheme and blew up. Unfortunately, it was the worst possible timing to leave her. Because someone kidnapped her. The first time.”
Keenan let out a whistle and shook his head. “Okay, so maybe that’s a little complicated. So when did you get back together?”
Even I found that a little hard to pinpoint. Was it the kiss we shared at the Ritz-Carlton, when she’d come on to me, exuding sex and begging me to fuck her? Or had it been that meal at Providence, where she’d staged a rescue attempt, trying to lure me in? Or maybe the ill-fated Morocco trip. Did any of that even count? We’d slept together, that was true. But extreme circumstances had driven her back into my arms.
There had been only a few times I could be sure that she’d sought me out. And when she’d told me she loved me, the admission had been wrung out of her by sheer fucking exhaustion.
“A day or two before her disappearance,” I said, thinking back to our night at the hospital. It had been the only time our connection had felt like old times, other than the hardcore sex. She’d been concussed and a little off-kilter, but it was the first time she sounded like she wanted me back for good.”
“Promise me something, Logan,” Keenan said, fixing me with a glare so piercing I actually flinched.
“That depends on the promise.”
“When we get her back, you marry her. You leave the fucking business behind if you have to and you marry my sister. You love her and she loves you. I know you feel responsible for all of this, but you don’t owe your father a thing.” Keenan pointed at me for emphasis. “He was constantly trying to pigeonhole you into things you didn’t like and punishing you for being yourself. Fuck that legacy. You don’t have to take it. And now, there’s nothing for Mina here. Find yourself a fancy flat somewhere in Europe and settle in. Make her happy.”
I snorted. “You sound just like her, you know.”
Keenan smiled wryly. “My sister’s a smart girl. Is it such a bad thing I sound like her?”
I tried to picture the scenario he’d painted. A life with Mina somewhere in the countryside. A little flat in Hamburg, maybe. Or a house overlooking the French Riviera. Mina spoke French like a native and adored the height of couture fashion one could only find in Paris.
“When we find her alive and unharmed, I’ll marry her in a fucking heartbeat, Keenan, you have my word. The question is, will she marry me?”
Keenan smiled, despite his dour mood. “She might not. Always contrary, our Mina.”
My Mina, I corrected in my head. She was mine, and I was going to break whoever dared touch her. These kidnappers were going to pay.
And Isadora? My last act as CEO of Farraday Industries would be to end Anwick. Destroy her partnerships, blacken her name in every corner of the industry, and make sure she was utterly and totally cut off from help.
I didn’t just want her bankrupt. I wanted her broken. No one hurt Mina and got away with it.
No one.
Chapter Five
Mina
I awoke with my head cradled in Julienne’s lap as the van came to a stop.
We’d spent one night in the van. Why I didn’t know, because we hadn’t traveled far. I could only surmise the place we had been heading to wasn’t available. We’d spent most of the day parked, occasionally moving a short distance.
When I sat up, my muscles screaming from sitting too long, the back doors of the van opened, revealing that we had stopped outside a little bungalow. In the darkness, there was nothing to be seen in the vicinity except vegetation, no way to tell if there were other houses nearby.
With beige siding and off-white sash windows, the house was pretty unremarkable, situated beneath two massive oak trees. The moon was high overhead, though I knew nothing about stars, much less stars in Europe, so I couldn’t gauge what direction we’d gone in. By logic, we weren’t that far from Toulon. But I couldn’t be sure. I hoped we’d driven in the direction of Marseille, the next city of any size from Toulon. Julienne and I could find a hotel in Marseille and lie low until I was confident we wouldn’t be tracked to her father’s house.
Baldy barked for me to get out, and when I didn’t immediately respond, he seized my ankle roughly and pulled me from the seat, dragging me across the carpeted floor toward the exit. The skin of my calves and thighs burned from the friction, immediately pulling me from my groggy state. I kicked out, trying to jab the heel of my shoe into his solar plexus, and he bared his teeth at me. When he pulled me into an upright sitting position, he hit me across the face with an open palm. The sting made my teeth rattle and brought tears to my eyes.
He pulled me out of the van and set me on my feet, snarling, “Don’t move.”
I stood stock-still in the driveway, seething,
and fantasized about putting an end to both Pornstache and Baldy. I doubted anyone would ever miss them. Scum like this needed to be eliminated. I was definitely not the first person they’d done this to.
Julienne was more compliant, and therefore was not slapped as she was taken from the van and pushed toward the front door. She staggered and nearly fell. Only Baldy’s arm kept her from slamming into the paved drive. I shuffled awkwardly after, pins and needles running up my legs. If I didn’t get the bonds off soon, there might be permanent damage.
Thankfully, our leg restraints were sawed off as soon as we reached the inside.
The interior of the house was just as nondescript at the outside. The walls were primed, awaiting paint that didn’t seem forthcoming. There was a yellow couch in one corner of the living room, a few chairs scattered here and there, and an air mattress arranged near what seemed to be the entryway to the kitchen. A few cans of beans and a container of Spam had been laid out by the mattress.
My stomach twisted with hunger. I hadn’t been fed since this morning’s breakfast of hard gas station biscuits. My throat was as dry as the Sahara, the few gulps of water I’d been allowed long since gone. Maybe I could get a drink of water in the bathroom, and find something useful in the process, maybe even escape out a window. The idea came to me quite suddenly, and I bit the inside of my cheek hard to contain a hysterical giggle. It was the beginnings of a plan, at the very least. And the worst thing that could happen was abject failure.
I swayed in place and cast Baldy a sidelong glance before I jerked my head toward the hall that led away from the living room.
“I need to go.”
He frowned at me, clearly not buying it. “You went earlier.”
“I drank some water,” I insisted. “And now I really need to go. I wouldn’t want to ruin this pretty dress.” I plastered on what I hoped would be an innocent but embarrassed smile and shuffled in the universal gesture for I really need to pee. They’d made us pee in a cup in the van, which we’d only done once each, so it wasn’t so far out of line.
